HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A federal judge delayed the planned execution of an inmate Thursday pending an evaluation to determine if the inmate is able to understand why he is to be put to death
Jeffery Wood was to have been executed Thursday evening for taking part in the 1996 robbery of a convenience store in which a clerk was fatally shot
But U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia in San Antonio granted a request by Wood's attorneys to delay his execution so they could hire a mental health expert to pursue their arguments that he is incompetent to be executed. Texas courts had previously refused similar appeals
Wood's attorneys say he suffers from paranoia and delusions, but the state does not recognize he suffers from mental illness
«We applaud the (court) for upholding Jeff Wood's rudimentary due process right to have his competency evaluated,» said Andrea Keilen, executive director of Texas Defender Service, a legal group also representing Wood
The Texas Attorney General's Office, which argued Wood had failed to show he was incompetent to be executed, did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment Thursday
Wood would have been the ninth condemned prisoner put to death in Texas this year and the fifth this month in the U.S.'s busiest capital punishment state
Attorney Scott Sullivan said in a motion filed Tuesday that he met with Wood a month ago and Wood told him he believed the trial judge was corrupt but would accept a $100,000 bribe and then deport him to Norway where he could live with his wife. Sullivan said Wood also believed the government will pay him $50,000 a year once he's released and that he's willing to give that money to the judge
The U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of prisoners determined to be mentally retarded, but that protection has not extended to those with mental illness
Wood waited in a car outside a convenience store while his roommate fatally shot clerk Kriss Keeran once in the face with a .22-caliber pistol
Both men then robbed the store, taking more than $11,000 in cash and checks
Evidence showed the pair had planned the robbery for a couple of weeks and unsuccessfully tried recruiting Keeran, 31, whom they knew, and another employee to stage a phony robbery
But Wood's lawyers said his mental illness allowed him to be easily manipulated by his roommate, Daniel Reneau; Reneau was executed in 2002
Wood, 35, was convicted under a Texas law, which makes accomplices as liable as the actual killer in capital murder cases.